State Bodies
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Robert Troy (FF), Longford-Westmeath

I thank the Deputies for raising this important matter and providing me an opportunity to update the House. I am taking this Topical Issue on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne.
The funding system for local authorities is a complex one, as authorities derive their income from a variety of sources, including commercial rates, charges for goods and services and local property tax, LPT, as well as funding from Government Departments and other bodies. Central government funding of local authorities is made up of transfers, both current and capital, coming from a wide range of Departments and offices for a variety of purposes. The Department is an important source of this funding, and it provided €99.8 million in 2023, €114 million in 2024 and €149.3 million in 2025 to Galway County Council across a number of schemes and funding sources.
The amount of funding provided under housing programmes and voluntary call schemes such as the URDF is largely determined by individual local authority ambition and activity. In 2025, a sizeable portion of funding to Galway County Council from this Department, almost €93 million, was in respect of a range of capital and current housing programmes. It is crucial to note that the Department does not provide specific funding allocations to local authorities for housing delivery, but rather recoups the relevant local authorities as projects advance and claims fall due for payment in line with the relevant scheme conditions.
With regard to the URDF calls 1 and 2, Galway County Council secured funding for the one project applied for, and under URDF call 3, Galway County Council secured €3 million. This is close to the average funding provided to all of the non-metropolitan area local authorities, of which the council still has €2.91 million available in its fund.
In respect of LPT funding, an important determinant of this allocation for Galway County Council is the baseline, which is the minimum level of funding available to each local authority from LPT. Following a review in 2023, the baselines for each local authority were adjusted in accordance with five criteria: population, area, deprivation levels, an authority’s locally raised income and the achievement of national policy priorities. Galway County Council received the second largest increase of any authority. There has been a further increase in the overall baselines in 2026, in line with the expected increased yield from the revaluation. As a result of both of these changes, Galway County Council’s baseline has seen a significant increase of over €7 million, or almost 50%, in a three-year period. While Galway County Council has the second largest area and the tenth largest population of any authority, on balance, this would appear to be fairly reflected by the fact that Galway County Council now has the fifth highest baseline in the country.
Apart from housing funding and LPT, in 2025, Galway County Council benefited from many other funding streams across the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, including allocations from the Local Government Fund to cover the impact of national pay agreements and the stranded costs associated with water transformation. While I appreciate the challenges faced by Galway County Council, I am confident that every effort has been made to assist the sector in recent years.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23